EP 105: Top HR Trends 2026 (What Actually Happened in 2025 + What’s Next)
If you listened to my “Top HR Trends for 2025” episode last year, you know I don’t do trendy hot takes just to be loud. I want receipts. I want proof. I want show-your-work HR.
So in this episode of Don’t Waste the Chaos, I graded my 2025 predictions (right / half right / wrong), pulled the lessons from what actually happened, and built a clear 2026 playbook you can use, whether you’re an HR leader, a business owner, or the person who got handed “HR stuff” because…someone had to.
Receipts matter. And clarity builds confidence.
How I graded my 2025 predictions
Right: The trend clearly accelerated, had measurable adoption, and created impact.
Half right: The trend was real, but the direction or pace changed.
Wrong: It didn’t materially move - or got replaced by something bigger.
My 2025 HR Trends Scorecard (and what it means for 2026)
1) AI in HR (Recruit-to-Exit) — Right
What I predicted: AI adoption across recruiting, performance, learning & development: “cradle to grave” HR.
What happened in 2025: AI usage jumped, and the readiness gap between leadership and employees got obvious.
2026 implication: We move from “trying tools” to making AI defensible: governance, auditability, bias risk, and human review.
Practical move: Create a one-page AI use policy:
What’s allowed / banned
Where humans must review decisions
How you’ll document use (audit trail)
Pull quote: Don’t start with features. Start with risk and workflow.
2) Employee well-being & mental health — Right
What I predicted: Well-being becomes a real program (EAP + flexibility + burnout prevention).
What happened in 2025: Burnout and distributed work complexity became a major leadership capability issue.
2026 implication: Mental health benefits won’t save you if your workload design is broken.
Practical move: In 1:1s, ask monthly:
“What’s your capacity right now?”
“What boundaries do you need?”
3) DEI shifts — Half right
What I predicted: DEI stays central but becomes woven into systems; neuroinclusion rises.
What happened in 2025: Scrutiny and legal/regulatory pressure intensified; DEI conversations shifted into compliance + litigation risk.
2026 implication: DEI becomes precision work - defensible practices, measurable outcomes, and accommodation fluency.
Practical move: Run a DEI risk check on:
Hiring + promotions
Mentorship + recognition
Selection criteria + documentation
…and review it with HR and/or counsel.
Callout: Inclusive systems + legal resilience are the new lane.
4) Upskilling & reskilling — Right (but uneven execution)
What I predicted: Continuous learning becomes necessary due to tech change.
What happened in 2025: Still urgent (especially with AI), but many organizations struggled to fund and execute consistently.
2026 implication: Shift from “learning budgets” to skills-based talent systems (hiring, internal mobility, pay).
Practical move: Pick 5 critical skills tied to your 2026 business goals and map them into:
Roles
Performance expectations
Learning paths
Internal mobility plans
5) Hybrid/flexible work — Half right
What I predicted: Hybrid isn’t going away.
What happened in 2025: Hybrid stabilized, but many companies pushed stronger in-office mandates - while flexibility remained a talent lever.
2026 implication: The battleground isn’t location ideology - it’s manager effectiveness + coordination.
Practical move: Define hybrid rules of the road:
Response time expectations
Meeting norms
Documentation standards
“How work moves” across locations
6) People analytics — Right
What I predicted: HR must get more data-driven.
What happened in 2025: More pressure to prove ROI and benchmark HR effectiveness.
2026 implication: Move from dashboards to decision systems (predict churn, quality of hire, mobility velocity).
Practical move: Track six metrics only, and own them end-to-end:
Turnover + regrettable loss
Time to fill
Internal fill rate
Engagement pulse results
Manager effectiveness
(Choose one more that matches your strategy - ex: absenteeism, safety, or performance outcomes)
Pull quote: We don’t want dashboards. We want decisions.
7) Leadership development comeback — Right
What I predicted: Leadership development returns because it got cut too hard.
What happened in 2025: Distributed work + burnout exposed leadership gaps.
2026 implication: Prioritize frontline manager essentials, not fancy executive programs.
Practical move: Build a 12-month manager essentials calendar (monthly):
Conflict
Coaching
Capacity planning
Feedback
Performance conversations
8) Pay transparency — Right
What I predicted: Progress continues (uneven), and states expand requirements.
What happened in 2025: More states expanded laws; employers operationalized ranges and audits.
2026 implication: Transparency forces clean job architecture and exposes compression fast.
Practical move:
Publish internal ranges (even if not required yet)
Run a compression audit
Build manager scripts for pay conversations
Callout: Compliance is the floor. Pay architecture is the work.
9) Immersive learning (VR/AR + AI training) — Half right
What I predicted: It’s closer than people think.
What happened in 2025: Credible pilots exist (soft skills, safety); still niche outside certain industries.
2026 implication: Immersive learning shows up as simulation—not just headsets.
Practical move: Pilot one use case, measure time-to-competency, and decide if it scales.
10) Culture strengthening — Right
What I predicted: Culture must be intentional (values, alignment, celebration).
What happened in 2025: Culture became inseparable from trust, retention, and change fatigue (AI, RTO, DEI whiplash).
2026 implication: Culture is your operating system - how decisions get made under pressure.
Practical move: Define three culture behaviors leaders are evaluated on (not just “values posters”).
Pull quote: You can’t talk retention without talking trust.
Top HR Trends to Watch in 2026
Here’s what I’m most focused on next:
Responsible AI (governance + defensibility + trust)
Adoption is happening. Now it’s about whether you can defend and trust how you’re using it—especially in hiring and performance.
Do this: Build an AI risk register + human review gates.
Skills-first talent strategy becomes the backbone
Skills data will drive hiring, internal mobility, and workforce planning more than titles or degrees.
Do this: Start with a skills taxonomy for priority roles + build “internal marketplace light.”
Pay transparency expands into pay architecture
This is bigger than posting ranges. It’s your philosophy, your bands, your promotion rules, and your manager capability.
Do this: Clean bands + scripts + more objective performance inputs.
Inclusive systems + legal resilience
Less “program,” more “process”: standardized criteria, documented selection decisions, trained interviewers.
Accommodation fluency as a core HR competency
Accommodations aren’t just one category anymore—remote work, mental health, religion, neurodiversity, flexibility.
Do this: Create an interactive process playbook + manager training now.
Manager effectiveness becomes a retention strategy
Distributed work succeeds or fails at the manager level.
Do this: Measure manager effectiveness via 360s or engagement data by team.
People analytics shifts from reporting to steering
HR should run quarterly people review meetings, like Finance does, focused on risk, capacity, and ROI.
A 30-Day HR Planning Sprint for 2026
If you want an actionable starting line, here’s the four-step sprint I recommend for your first 30 days:
1) Listen
Run a simple poll or survey:
What’s breaking?
What’s working?
What do people want next?
2) Simplify
Pick three priorities max for the year.
3) Systematize
Build the policies, processes, and manager enablement to support those priorities.
4) Prove it
Set baseline metrics now, then review quarterly.
Do it right. Do it light. Do it wrong. Do it long.
Want help? Bring me your biggest HR pain for 2026.
If you’ve got something sitting in the back of your mind: AI, pay, hybrid, accommodations, performance management, hiring, comp, HR tech - send it to me and let’s tackle it.
Share this episode with your leadership team so you’re solving the same problems together
And if you need a partner to build the plan (and actually execute it), reach out
Email: hi@saltadvisors.com
